Getting a “sense” of the data

This data is filtered to only geo-tagged tweets in our bounding box. Also limited the the english language

We have a total of 83041 geotagged tweets.

What is in the data? tweet text, retweets, favorites, location

Month Day Time Year full_text user_location retweet_count favorite_count lat lon user_type month_num date
Mar 15 19:23:25 2015 Pizza as a service http://t.co/RsnGRdKDen California 0 0 34.44298 -119.6058 tourist 3 2015-03-15
Nov 4 21:16:02 2015 View of the waves through a washed up oil barrel. #SantaBarbara #travel @ Hendry’s Off Leash Dog Beach https://t.co/wavOy6AvpV Santa Barbara 1 1 34.40229 -119.7420 local 11 2015-11-04
Jun 1 05:02:39 2017 One of my favorite and also most dreaded times of year… the… https://t.co/OrHEDcEI0Z Nevada 0 0 34.41361 -119.8481 tourist 6 2017-06-01
Dec 9 21:43:14 2018 Made it to #santabarbara safe. Time to eat #sandbar @ Santa Barbara, California https://t.co/i2NCPaCBnX Inglewood 0 0 34.42580 -119.7140 tourist 12 2018-12-09
Feb 1 20:55:43 2016 Sometimes you’re so blessed you don’t need a filter. ☀️ @ Santa Barbara Beach https://t.co/qU6v3JKhRA Los Angeles, CA 0 0 34.41713 -119.6724 tourist 2 2016-02-01
Jun 4 21:06:44 2016 Come celebrate my b day @thewayfarersb with special b day set by… https://t.co/N7cBzrcspV Santa Barbara 0 0 34.41502 -119.6923 local 6 2016-06-04
Jul 19 19:32:29 2016 Sun is shining bright today… Come explore Carp #carpinteria #beachlife #wheresmychampagne… https://t.co/ZSDG1mUozw santa barbara 0 0 34.39880 -119.5188 local 7 2016-07-19
Nov 10 05:47:21 2019 Sunset walk in #carpenteria with @mfackenthal and @dougranck @ Carpinteria, California https://t.co/ErQacGDJam San Diego, CA 0 0 34.39917 -119.5164 tourist 11 2019-11-10
Apr 3 06:59:05 2015 I just spent 3 months in a 3 night town! NA 0 0 34.40403 -119.7056 tourist 4 2015-04-03
May 23 22:36:38 2017 Legen- wait for it @ Goleta Pier https://t.co/M603AxM2Tn riverside but not riverside 0 0 34.41652 -119.8292 tourist 5 2017-05-23
Mar 9 20:42:28 2016 This will do. #ItListCalifornia @ Santa Barbara Waterfront https://t.co/sZ0j7CV5of Toronto 0 0 34.40672 -119.6937 tourist 3 2016-03-09
Nov 6 01:27:58 2016 Morrissey at the bowl. @ Santa Barbara Bowl https://t.co/hT8JGNbvFL Los Angeles, CA 0 0 34.43471 -119.6938 tourist 11 2016-11-06
Dec 11 12:27:06 2018 This guy again! #bear #santa #santabear #beary #christmas #bearychristmas #bearychristmas🐻 #thenugget #thenuggetgoleta #unclejimmy #jimontheair #jimontheradio @ Goleta, California https://t.co/8rGeyXgwVR Santa Barbara, CA 0 0 34.43574 -119.8250 local 12 2018-12-11
Nov 26 17:49:31 2017 🦋Everyday Is An Opportunity & Wonderful Day To Celebrate Unique & Quality Friendships🦋#imblessed… https://t.co/2n8m9o0zRL Santa Barbara 0 0 34.50214 -119.8674 local 11 2017-11-26
Jan 28 22:55:18 2018 I thought the price was in Baht by the way it was notated (450.-) but no, this teapot is $450. https://t.co/kXywktiXgE Seattle, Bangkok, SoCal 0 4 34.42124 -119.6419 tourist 1 2018-01-28
Oct 10 19:44:42 2015 current weather in Santa Barbara: fair, 88°F 35% humidity, wind 6mph, visibility 10mi, pressure 29.97in steady Santa Barbara, CA 0 0 34.41938 -119.6990 local 10 2015-10-10
Feb 13 22:11:12 2017 uncleroccosnypizza best pie in town! #number1pizza ayoooo #pizza #uncleroccosnypizza #rocco… https://t.co/HFfWt0z3yS Hollywood CA 0 0 34.41669 -119.6955 tourist 2 2017-02-13
Jan 8 03:50:23 2015 Today two separate people blocked me on FB because I wouldn’t smoke weed with them. Santa Barbara, CA 0 5 34.41418 -119.7155 local 1 2015-01-08
May 16 23:17:36 2015 Pelicans sitting on the Boathouse 🚣🏼 at #SantaBarbaraPier 🇺🇸🐳 @ Santa Barbara Pier https://t.co/D23t3nYbZy NA 0 0 34.41129 -119.6879 tourist 5 2015-05-16
Jun 27 02:09:11 2016 Trying to duplicate David’s magic in his absence. Jokes on me… https://t.co/KGfjUBjoe0 Santa Barbara, CA 0 1 34.44972 -119.7164 local 6 2016-06-27

There are tweets from people without a designated location. For these, we assume they are tourists. But that is likley not true for all of them. One method to determine locals vs tourists would be to look at previous tweets and if a certain percent in a given time frame are within Santa Barbara, we can assume they are locals. There is a paper on this.


Map of all tweets

Timeline of all tweets

The big decrease in number of tweets ends right at October 31, 2016. I’m still not 100% sure what is happening but this seems to hold across twitter. From the Twitter API page, Version 0.0 was deprecated on that date

Nature based approach

Applying dictionary

The dictionary is “nature-based” and is al ist of words I put together. I had a hard time finding an ontology or lexicon that would fit this project. These are definitely skewed more towards nature and recreation rather than words like “home” or “connection”.

dictionary <- read_csv("data/dictionary.csv")

dictionary$word
##  [1] "hike"        "trail"       "hiking"      "camping"     "tent"       
##  [6] "climb"       "summit"      "fishing"     "sail"        "sailing"    
## [11] "boat"        "boating"     "ship"        "cruise"      "cruising"   
## [16] "bike"        "biking"      "dive"        "diving"      "surf"       
## [21] "surfing"     "paddle"      "swim"        "ocean"       "beach"      
## [26] "^sea"        "sand"        "coast"       "island"      "wave"       
## [31] "fish"        "whale"       "dolphin"     "pacific"     "crab"       
## [36] "lobster"     "water"       "shore"       "marine"      "seawater"   
## [41] "lagoon"      "slough"      "saltwater"   "underwater"  "tide"       
## [46] "aquatic"     "^tree"       "^earth"      "weather"     "sunset"     
## [51] "sunrise"     "^sun"        "climate"     "park"        "wildlife"   
## [56] "^view"       "habitat"     "^rock"       "nature"      "mountains"  
## [61] "^peak"       "canyon"      "pier"        "wharf"       "environment"
## [66] "ecosystem"

I looked for any of these within the geo-tagged tweets to identify “nature-based” or not.

Using this dictionary, there are 15898 nature-based tweets (19%)

Here are some examples of tweets, the column nature_word identifies if it is nature based (1) or not (0).

#selecting just a few columns
ndf <- nature_df %>%
  select(date, full_text, user_type, nature_word)

kable(sample_n(ndf, 40)) %>%
  kable_styling(bootstrap_options = c("striped", "condensed"), font_size = 10, fixed_thead = T)
date full_text user_type nature_word
2015-06-26 stop 4. i can’t drink but they say the beer is outstanding. they are great at giving me a stamp i… https://t.co/j2fl3okkgz tourist 0
2017-11-05 sunday strolls at pase🌞 nuev🌞. remember to roll back your clocks an hour for #daylightsavings!… https://t.co/i8zd2m8moo local 1
2015-09-20

the energy was so awesome with the crowd at the santa barbara bowl tonight for ben harper 😍😎

#bhic @… https://t.co/9n7e1qmgaj
tourist 0
2015-03-08 awwww the little turtles in finding nemo are soooo cute 😍 local 0
2016-09-07 while i wait patiently to get my visa in la, this book is speaking… https://t.co/uvxc1bkjxi tourist 0
2017-02-02 i love doing #refretting work! #guitar #guitarrepair #fret… https://t.co/l4tlfkoqgb tourist 0
2016-02-25 "there’s no secret to success. it is the result of preparation, hard… https://t.co/7hjvm6pbmr tourist 0
2018-11-16 thanks for playing yesterday briannasampsonn!! enjoy the coffee and good luck on midterms. #lovewhereyoulive @ icon apartments at iv https://t.co/mwljzxgowc tourist 0
2015-03-22 i no longer care about my bracket, i’m just routing for straight upsets! 🏀 tourist 0
2017-10-29 i’ve only seen fruit trees trained like this in italy #lotusland #santabarbara #asla2017… https://t.co/b3qyfhnnzk tourist 0
2018-05-06 not only gorgeous but it smells soooooo good. #coastaldrive #californiacoast… https://t.co/iu4svffljy tourist 1
2016-07-10 just posted a photo @ stearns wharf https://t.co/eczayq4fwh tourist 1
2015-04-14 imagine opening your closet and seeing a huge spider with 20 little baby spiders just wonderful tourist 0
2017-06-28 she was sly with her smiles but i managed to get one from her 😊 @ santa barbara, california https://t.co/maywaywrfa local 0
2017-02-28 on a glorious warm winter day after days and days or rainstorms everything here is richly green… https://t.co/yk59kt72wc local 0
2015-02-15 #foxnewssunday dems will be responsible if no dhs funding but repubs need to better publicize dems refusal to even debate, amend#fns tourist 0
2015-04-09 huge #thanks to @xshelmets the new #dh6 full face helmet! 😍🙌❤️ now, let’s go #skate, guys… https://t.co/k7axcridvb tourist 0
2016-02-27 i’m at coronado butterfly preserve in goleta, ca https://t.co/pthrl6jnzg local 0
2016-06-10 this should be interesting! tomorrow from 1-5pm in santa barbara, join me at the craft beer… https://t.co/iacktle76b tourist 0
2016-03-30 tfw when u finally listen to @thestruts after lindsayhatesinsta begged you for months, you… https://t.co/hqk73fa1q7 tourist 0
2015-04-26 danced with the sweetest guy ever.. but my dumbass ran away… asdfjkl when will i learn!?!? tourist 0
2016-08-21 we made it!! @ santa barbara mountains https://t.co/7j5dywqazl local 1
2016-10-24 i’m at @codyscafesb in santa barbara, ca https://t.co/uh3nhbpj8r local 0
2016-11-28 our roaster, @dunecoffee is having a 25% off discount online today! order anything from coffee… https://t.co/7gxw5fpnlv local 0
2015-02-04 omg i love having the entire place to myself 😭 local 0
2018-02-25 wine tasting with my beautiful lady. #parents #winetime @ santa barbara winery https://t.co/htiyu54phv tourist 0
2019-06-01 this adorable happy buddha was just a chocolate candy, a perfect complement to a delicious cappuccino goodness in a cute red cup 😍 #morningcoffee #appreciatelittlethings #chocolatebuddha @ santa barbara, california https://t.co/vd2jqosyga tourist 0
2015-05-31 i need this sign for my kitchen. #whipit #carpinteria #california #sunday #padero #santaclauslane @… https://t.co/msmb6dh2go local 0
2015-05-11 why is my body so sore 😩 tourist 0
2015-04-10 fifa with the homies is about as intense as it gets tourist 0
2015-04-06 shitted bricks and maybe cried on the swinging ferris wheel 🎡 @ disney california adventure https://t.co/6l9mvm4hjp local 0
2017-08-09 i thought this was so cute..when my daughter sent this pic to me this morning from ucsb..of the… https://t.co/jegn98gcng tourist 0
2018-04-25 🍃 b r u a d a r a c h 🍃 (n.) dreamer, visionary. @ belmond el encanto https://t.co/grck02uxe0 tourist 0
2018-12-18 if you put all your effort into something, something good is going to come out of it - #instagramlesanny #gobigorgohome @ santa barbara, california https://t.co/dlewbcgqrc tourist 0
2017-08-06 it’s my pleasure to introduce, for the very first time, mr. and mrs. catherine and monte lutz… https://t.co/u8qxcebzoh tourist 0
2019-06-09 a psalm of david . “the lord is my shepherd; i shall not want. he makes me lie down in green pastures. he leads me beside still waters. he restores my soul. he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s… https://t.co/99gwnapem7 local 1
2016-01-13 clamping clamping #clamping a 1963 kay westerner rebraced in a… https://t.co/snyikabhuw tourist 0
2015-03-16 i think my circadian rhythm just gave up local 0
2016-12-06 great team in santa barbara! thank you everyone, it was awesome!! 🙌🏻 #dreamteam #shooting… https://t.co/dda9b6oyki tourist 0
2016-12-24 it’s a chilly blustery morning and we wish we were snuggle in our mermaid blanket this this… https://t.co/dmstvnoagp local 0

Where are locals tweeting naturebased tweets from? And where are tourists tweeting naturebased tweets from?

What are the places people are tweeting from?

Using the California Protected Areas database we can see how often a geo-tagged tweet from a designated area is nature-based or not.

Map of protected areas and their proportion and ratio of naturebased tweets to non-nature based tweets. You can select layers to turn on and off on the left hand side.

Do locals engage more than tourists in protected areas? Proportion and ratio of tweets by locals compared to tourists.

Next steps